July 2014
2015
Registration
Procedure Details
Questions? Contact:
Jan Cartmill
2900 Rodd St #1784
Midland, MI 48641-1784
231/690-5847
Table of Contents
Page
Hot Off the Press 3
Athletes and Non-Athletes: DECK PASS 3
Clubs: CLBMS 101 3
Non-Athletes 3
Apprentice Officials 3
Pictures on Membership Cards 3
General Information 4
Categories of Athlete, Club and Non-Athlete Memberships Offered by MS 5
Athlete Memberships 5
Year-Round Athletes 5
Outreach Athletes 5
Seasonal Athletes 5
Single-Meet Open Water Athletes 6
Club Membership 6
Non-Athlete Membership 6
Athlete Registration 8
USA-S Athlete Registration Using Team Manager (TM) or Team Unify (TU) 8
MS Office Requirements for Registration Exports 9
Athlete Transfers 10
At Time of Annual Registration 10
Transfers During Registration Year 10
Foreign Federation Athlete Joins USA-S 11
Club Registration 12
Club Renewals 13
New Clubs 13
Pre-employment Screening 15
Non-Athlete Registrations 16
All Non-Athlete Members 16
Concussion Training 16
Background Screening 16
Athlete Protection Training (APT) 16
Officials & Others 16
Coach Memberships 17
Safety Certifications 17
Education Requirement 18
Physical Disability Waiver 19
2015 Fees 20
Club Registration Fees 20
Athlete Registration Fees 20
Non-Athlete Registration Fees 20
Penalties 21
Unregistered Athletes 21
Notification 21
2015 Registration Forms 21
Other Useful Information 22
Club Portals 22
HOT OFF THE PRESS
ATHLETES & NON-ATHLETES:
· DECK PASS: Membership cards may be printed from DECK PASS. Coaches who have not received their membership cards but want to gain deck access at a meet may use this membership card printout in lieu of the card from the MS Office. Athletes who wish to deck enter a meet and who’ve not received their membership card may print a card from DECK PASS and use it to prove membership.
CLUBS-
· CLUB LEADERSHIP AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT SCHOOL (CLBMS) 101: USA Swimming has launched a new online course called Club Leadership and Business Management School 101. As of June 15, 2014, new clubs are required to have a minimum of two team representatives complete this online course as part of the new club application process. (See page 14 for additional details).
NON-ATHLETES-
· APPRENTICE OFFICIALS: This is a new category for a non-member who has initiated the process of becoming an Official in the LSC. To enable tracking membership completion dates through the Officials’ Tracking System (OTS), a non-member Apprentice Official must be entered into SWIMS. The Apprentice Official will have 60 days from the date he/she initiates training as an official to complete all membership requirements for Officials and submit a non-athlete application and fees to the LSC registrar.
· PICTURES ON MEMBERSHIP CARDS: Beginning with the 2015 registration year, non-athlete members are strongly encouraged to provide a passport-style photograph along with their membership application. Pictures will be placed on the 2015 membership cards for all non-athletes who make the pics available. This should speed up the process of check-in at meets.
GENERAL INFORMATION
All year-round athletes, seasonal athletes, outreach athletes, single-meet open water athletes, clubs and non-athletes join USA Swimming through their Local Swimming Committee (LSC), one of 59 local organizations responsible for administering USA Swimming activities in a defined geographical area. The information in this document pertains to the Michigan LSC, Michigan Swimming (MS). Within MS, Jan Cartmill is the Registration/Membership Chair and is responsible for providing information and applications to all interested groups and individuals.
The Swimming Year is from September 1 through August 31 of the following year.
The Registration Year is based on a calendar year period; however all annual registrations received on or after September 1 do not expire until December 31 of the following year (a 15 month period).
All applications, both paper and electronic, from previous years should be destroyed—they are not to be used for registrations beyond August 31, 2014.
The official date of registration will be the date the MS Office receives the registrations (whether electronic or hard copy). However, the registrations will not be processed until the fees and supporting documents are received and it is expected that those will be received within two to three days after receipt of the email.
The MS Office will help all clubs get their registrations processed rapidly; however, the ultimate responsibility for proper registration of its membership lies with the individual clubs. To avoid penalties (see page 21), all registrations should be submitted and paid for before these athletes are entered in meets.
CATEGORIES OF ATHLETE, CLUB AND NON-ATHLETE MEMBERSHIPS OFFERED BY MS
ATHLETE MEMBERSHIP:
YEAR-ROUND ATHLETE
Year-round athlete membership is for a calendar year period (January – December). New athlete memberships processed on or after September 1 are valid through December 31 of the following year. USA Swimming’s fee for registration year 2015 is $52.00; the MS fee is 14.00 for a total fee of $66.00.
Year-round athlete membership provides liability and secondary accident medical insurance coverage, plus complimentary issues of Splash, the official USA Swimming magazine.
New membership is defined as someone who has not been registered in the last 19 years. Renewed membership is defined as someone who prior to registering for 2015 had been registered as any membership type during the past 19 years.
OUTREACH ATHLETE
Outreach membership is a year-round athlete membership with reduced fee and is offered to economically disadvantaged youth. Membership is for a calendar year period (January-December). New memberships processed on or after September 1 are valid through December 31 of the following year. USA Swimming’s fee for registration year 2015 - $5.00; the MS fee is $2.00 for a total fee of $7.00.
The goal is to provide opportunities in swimming to economically disadvantaged youth in Michigan. Athletes who apply for Outreach Membership in MS must submit a copy of a current Federal Free and Reduced Lunch Program Verification Form or a current Food Stamp Letter.
SEASONAL ATHLETE
Individual Season athlete membership is offered in Michigan for an unspecified but continuous period of not more than 150 days beginning on the date of registration.
The seasonal membership program offers a competitive swimming program to those athletes who swim for only part of the year. Seasonal athletes may compete in USA-S Sanctioned or Approved meets below Zone Championship level. USA Swimming’s fee for registration year 2014 is $30.00; the MS fee is $14.00 for a total fee of $44.00.
Seasonal athlete membership provides liability and secondary accident medical insurance coverage for the designated period of the membership.
SINGLE-MEET OPEN WATER ATHLETE
Membership is offered for the specific date(s) of an open water competition. The athlete must compete unattached. Single-meet open water athletes may compete in USA Swimming sanctioned and approved meets below the Zone Championship level. USA Swimming’s fee for registration year 2015 is $10.00; MS does not add a fee for this type of membership so the total fee is $10.00.
There is no limit to how many times an athlete can join as a single-meet open water member during a given registration year. Single-meet open water membership is valid for a period of three days.
Single-meet open water membership provides liability and secondary accident medical insurance coverage for the designated period of the membership.
CLUB MEMBERSHIP:
Year-round club membership is for a calendar year period (January – December). Club memberships processed on or after September 1 are valid through December 31 of the following year. At the May 2011 House of Delegates Meeting, a sliding scale for club renewal fees depending on the renewal date was instituted. For those registering between September 1 and November 30, the charge is $125. Club registrations postmarked between December 1 and December 31 will be $200 and those postmarked on or after January 2 will owe $300.
All USA Swimming registered year-round clubs have liability insurance coverage.
NON-ATHLETE MEMBERSHIP:
Non-athlete membership is for a calendar year period (January-December). Non-athlete memberships processed on or after September 1 are valid through December 31 of the following year.
Non-athlete members are coaches, officials, board members, parents and other individuals who do not swim. USA Swimming’s fee for registration year 2015 is as follows:
Individual: $52.00; the MS fee is $14.00 for a total fee of $66.00;
Family (family membership is for two non-athlete members, related by blood or marriage living at the same address): $104.00; the MS fee is $14.00 for a total fee of $118.00.
All non-athlete membership categories provide liability and secondary accident medical insurance coverage and, in addition, members receive a copy of the USA Swimming rulebook as well as complimentary issues of Splash, the official USA Swimming magazine.
ATHLETE REGISTRATION
The registration of year-round and seasonal athletes via the submission of paper applications to the MS Office will result in an additional $5.00 per athlete charge in addition to the current membership fee.
Clubs should accept new athlete registrations and renewals (including those for Outreach Athlete Members) by having a parent or swimmer (if not a minor) complete and sign the current year’s USA Swimming application form. The club’s registration officer should then process all registrations by entering all of the information from these application forms into the software that the club uses to manage their team. This software must be compatible with SWIMS (e.g., SDIF version 3 (*.sd3), COM Link (*.cl2) or XSDIF (*.xml)) and the version of the software should be current so that it is capable of exporting ALL of the information contained on the current year’s USA Swimming application to a batch file and sending it to the MS Office via email along with a list of the athlete names in the batch.
If your club elects to use an application form other than the one provided by USA Swimming to gather information regarding your athletes, make sure that it incorporates ALL of the information on the 2015 USA Swimming application including the year of high school graduation for those athletes who are in high school.
Clubs submitting electronic registrations are not required to send copies of original membership applications to the MS Office unless the athlete was registered with a different club during the past 120 days (see the section on ATHLETE TRANSFERS, page 10).
Each registration batch is to be for a single club and payment is to be in the form of a single check. Our bank charges us for the number of checks deposited and it is difficult, if not impossible, to recover money from an individual who has bounced a check and then left the club. A properly completed Money Summary Form (including the batch number from your registration software) should accompany all submissions so that we understand what you are intending to purchase.
All athletes belonging to a club should register through the club. Athletes should not send applications directly to the MS Office.
Lists of currently registered athletes are available to each club in their Club Portal on the USA Swimming website. See Table of Contents for directions on accessing the Club Portal.
USA-S ATHLETE REGISTRATION USING TEAM MANAGER OR TEAM UNIFY
These programs may be used to register Year Round, Season1 and Individual Season and Outreach athletes only. All non-athletes and clubs must be registered using paper copies.
Follow the instructions for the software package you are using to format the information so that it is usable by SWIMS.
Keep in mind the following standards set by USA-S:
o Enter the legal name of the athlete. There is a separate place for the preferred name. Use it.
o Enter names with upper/lower case, first letter capital. (i.e. John Edward Doe).
o Enter entire middle name if available.
o Be sure to include all information requested on the USA-S application—date of birth, sex (gender), address, home phone (separated by hyphens), parents’ names and citizenship are required. Disability, ethnic information, household e-mail address and year of high school graduation for athletes in high school are optional but should be included if they are filled in on the application.
Telephone Numbers: Do you know what happens when a phone number is not entered separated by hyphens (as per the formatting standard)? Here’s an example:
My phone number is 231-690-5847. That number separated by hyphens takes up 12 spaces and SWIMS allots 10 spaces in addition to the 2 hyphens. If it is entered as (231) 690-5847 this requires 14 spaces and this is what I will see in SWIMS: (23-) 6-0584. This is useless information!
MICHIGAN SWIMMING (MS) OFFICE REQUIREMENTS FOR REGISTRATION EXPORTS:
· Send an email to the Michigan Swimming Office with your exported batch file (and the report) as attachments.
· Immediately send through regular mail the following:
o Completed Money Summary Form
o Printed list of the athletes included in the exported registration batch (no need to send if this has been sent via email)
o One check to cover the transactions in the registration batch and any other registrations
o Hard copy of the application if the athlete is transferring from another club
o NOTIFICATION OF MEMBERSHIP IN USA SWIMMING form signed by the athlete (if the athlete is a member of another FINA)
· The registration batch will not be processed until the check and Money Summary Form arrive through the mail.
ATHLETE TRANSFERS
AT THE TIME OF ANNUAL REGISTRATION
If an athlete registers with a club other than the one they competed with the previous year and the athlete could have competed with the old club during the previous 120 days, a copy of the signed athlete application form must be provided to the MS Registration / Membership Chair—even if the registration is being submitted electronically. This copy should contain the last date of competition in a USA Swimming Sanctioned Meet with the former club–-space is provided at the bottom of the application for this information.
Exact last dates of competition in a USA Swimming Sanctioned Meet are important because of the “120-day Rule” (see Article 203.3 of USA Swimming Rules & Regulations). If the transfer comes in electronically at the time of registration and the signed application is not provided, either the date the request for transfer is received by the Membership / Registration Chair or the last date the athlete could possibly have competed with the previous club will be assigned as the last date of competition and the athlete will not be eligible to officially attach to the new club until 120 days from the assigned last date of competition.